Attention all Knifemakers!.....Product dealers/retailers and/or knife makers/sharpeners/hobbyists (etc) are not permitted to insert business related text/videos/images (company/company name/product references) and/or links into your signature line, your homepage url (within the homepage profile box), within any posts, within your avatar, nor anywhere else on this site. Market research (such as asking questions regarding or referring to products/services that you make/offer for sale or posting pictures of finished projects) is prohibited. These features are reserved for supporting vendors and hobbyists.....Also, there is no need to announce to the community that you are a knifemaker unless you're trying to sell something so please refrain from sharing.
Thanks for your co-operation!

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums by donating using the link above or becoming a Supporting Member.

Moritaka - how long?

I wonder how long will this go on - how many more people I'll have to disappoint with the news that their knife is no good? How long will these knives continue to be sold here?

As you might be able to guess I just got another bad one in where I had to tell another customer that I can't work on his knife. Another $150 down the crapper for the customer.....another $150 in the bank for the vendor.

I'm not saying this to cause any trouble, but perhaps we can write a polite letter on behalf of ALL OF US, to Akiko to express our concerns. I was close to getting a knife made a while back, and Akiko was great to deal with.
Is there a chance that the problem areas are going unnoticed? I really don't think Moritaka is trying to rip anyone off.

Hopefully they have some recourse with the vendor. It's good of you to be brutally honest with the customer like that vs trying unsuccessfully to fix/ tune, which would result in their inability to return the knife.

Dave, could you take a 210 Moritaka gyuto with this issue and bring the entire edge towards the spine, turning it into a suji-esque knife?
I realize that would be a pain, but I'm just wondering if they are at all salvageable. Better to have a $150 Moritaka suji, than a $150 cheese knife.

I think it depends on how much core steel is inserted in the cladding...there is a picture of the process on Moritaka's web site, and while I'm sure it varies, every time I've see that process (others do it to, nothing wrong with it) it looks like the core is about 1/4th the size od the cladding (i.e. 1/2" piece of core inserted into 2" piece opf cladding)

Oh yeah...just not sure how much...if the spine to edge is 50mm, does core steel extend up from the edge 10mm?, 20mm? who knows. I think you could sand the choil, and then force a quick patina to see if you identify core (I'm really guessing)...but the real point is somebody bought a $150 knife and immediately faces a $50 - $100 or ?? repair job to have a chunk of their knife ground down.

For those of you new to the world of knife knuts...this is an old issue, so apparently the maker chooses to deny or ignore the flaw, and it is a flaw that even experienced knife knuts cannot usually detect.

On this knife I have here now the edge is wavy along it's length which is a problem more with sloppy work but this is fixable, the real problem lies in just above the edge where (both sides) have deep grinds into the bevels. It's real tricky on this knife because it's almost OK for one touch up sharpening job but I'd guarantee that after this any and all subsequent sharpening work will expose the hole more and more. The heal is low hanging but isn't at all the issue, it's the grinds on the bevels on the side of the knife.

FWIW, going to Moritaka and/or their US vendors will do no good, I've been there and done that.

Hey maybe I should ask for folks to send me every Moritaka that's ever been sold in the US so that I can inspect them all and then gather all of the defective ones together and then ask the vendor for a return? Maybe then they'll listen?